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About Michael J. Miller

Miller, who was editor-in-chief of PC Magazine from 1991 to 2005, authors this blog for PC Magazine to share his thoughts on PC-related products. No investment advice is offered in this blog. All duties are disclaimed. Miller works separately for a private investment firm which may at any time invest in companies whose products are discussed in this blog, and no disclosure of securities transactions will be made.

Living With the Samsung Galaxy Tab

For the past couple of weeks, I've been trying out the only real Apple iPad competitor: the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Overall, I think it's an interesting device that works pretty well on its own terms. Even though it doesn't make phone calls in most US versions, such as the Verizon one I've been using, it still feels more like a large phone than what I would expect from a tablet.

The Galaxy Tab is, of course, smaller and thus more portable than an iPad, with a 7-inch 1,024-by-600-pixel touchscreen and weighing 13.4 ounces -- about half that of the Apple product. The device I tested had a 1GHz Hummingbird ARM Cortex-A8 processor, dual cameras, Android 2.2 "Froyo," and 2GB of memory, plus an included 16GB memory card.

The smaller size makes it easier to carry around. I can fit it (barely) in a coat pocket, although I find it a little too bulky to do that regularly. I tend to carry my tablets in a briefcase where the size difference doesn't matter much. But, I've shown it to lots of people, and a lot of them like the smaller size. It would fit much more easily in a purse, for instance.

The device itself felt solid, and most of the applications ran fine. Most of the apps look the same as devices written for Android phones -- just somewhat larger. As a result, they don't really seem to take advantage of the extra space. Still, I was able to run things like the Fox News app, and the Huffington Post app, and they looked quite good. One minor nit was that even when I was looking at many sites while holding the tablet in vertical mode, the videos would play horizontally, so I had to turn the device. YouTube works the same way. Not difficult, but not as smooth as I would have liked.

Unfortunately, as of yet, there's no way of differentiating "tablet" applications from "phone" ones in the Android Market. But then, there aren't many tablet-specific applications yet. Many reviews point to the Wall Street Journal app, but I haven't been able to get it to work properly.

The browser generally worked pretty well, though, and in many cases, I was able to play Flash content, such as on the ABC.com site. However, some Web sites had only the mobile versions, and other sites specifically block Android, such as Hulu. For instance, trying to play a video in Flash from NBC.com results in a message that says, "Sorry, the content you are trying to access is not currently available on this device." Of course, you get the same messages on an iPad, so this isn't really a knock against the Tab.

Mail seems to be getting a bit better with each iteration of Android, but I still don't find it as good as the mail program on the iPad or iPhone. Filing messages into folders remains problematic, both in the Gmail and Mail applications. In any case, it would have been nice to see a version designed to take advantage of the larger space. The Media Hub application offers a decent selection of movies and TV shows, but not nearly as many as the iTunes store.

The video cameras include a rear-facing 3.2-megapixel camera with a flash, designed to capture still pictures and 720-by-480 video; and a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera designed for video calling. But the applications for video calling are really not quite here yet. Verizon offers Skype mobile, but without video; Qik currently only makes video calls on Sprint; and Fring looks like it should work, but in practice, I get audio but not video. I expect this will improve over time, but for now, it's still a work in progress.

One interesting feature on the tab is "Swype," which lets you move your finger from key to key without lifting it up, which some people find faster on a phone. On the larger screen, I'm not sure it's necessary, but it's a nice feature.

Battery life seemed quite reasonable. It's lighter than the iPad, so it doesn't have as big of a battery or as long of a life; but it's close enough so that I didn't worry about it at all during a couple of days of heavy use.

Overall then, there's a lot to like about the Tab, including a nice assortment of Android applications, and a smaller, lighter package, so it's easier to carry. However, there's lot that still seems unpolished. I would particularly like to see more applications actually take advantage of the screen size, as well as improvements in the mail application, and better corporate controls.

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